Nintendo Is Charging People to Change TV Channels (No, Really)

Kotaku: With Nintendo TVii, the Kyoto-based game maker is bringing streaming video to the GamePad. Starting on December 8 in Japan, gamers can watch the pictures as they fly through the air via the comfort of the Wii U GamePad. But if you want easy channel changing, you must barf up extra cash.

not for nothing but dismissing the medicinal qualities of cannabis is extremely ignorant. if you were diagnosed with a disease wouldnt you want the full compliment of medicines that could make you more life more bearable avaiable to you and your doctor?

educate yourself and others before you post such nonsense. Medicinal marijuana has changed and saved many lives.

on topic: youre right though, the article and the headline are at odds with each other. strange choice by kotaku

This may be irrelevant, but you can't use the Wii U for channel surfing on most televisions in the US. Most US families have Comcast, which uses its own box to surf. You even have to use THEIR remote. The Wii U cannot bypass that.

I love how people bitch and moan about the quality of games journalism, but when an article turns up with a horrifically sensationalist headline (like this one), everyone suddenly excuses the bad journalism because it lets them launch into some fanboyism (on both sides).

You mean nintendo made an app that integrates netflix, hulu, amazon digital, and your cable service options into a touch screen app and nintendo wants maybe around 2 bucks for it? My goodness, those monsters. /s

I mean is this the first time people have used these console extra functions that are non gaming related or something?

some Applications cost money, its not a requirement but you cannot sit there and say, that should be free when you may not know the full reason its not free.companies have to pay licence fee's some things An it may not be free Because of it. The fact it is an option instead of not a requirement is a good thing. That beats a hidden fee anytime.

obviously, if you bother to read the article, you will see that this only in Japan.

the article was obviously (also) translated from the Japanese text using (probably) Google Translate or something similar, coz it has "...gamers can watch the pictures as they fly through the air...". if Wii U does that, that would truly be next-gen. pictures flying through the air.

anyway, it has already been mentioned that in the US, TVii is free. of course, this does not mean you don't pay for the services you get when using Netflix, Hulu, etc.

> obviously, if you bother to read the article, you will see that this only in Japan.

What about the one who wrote the article? I know we can blame people for not reading but this would happen a lot less if authors such as the ones from Kotaku tried a bit less at troll-baiting with their headlines.

my point exactly... and the article, if you can call it that: quoting a description, and literally copying an electronically-translated set of text without even bothering to fix the context of the content, is just well, like you said troll-baiting.